Vegetative state

A person in this state may open their eyes and show sleep-wake cycles while showing no reproducible, purposeful or voluntary responses to stimuli. The name describes wakefulness and behaviour, and it does not settle whether any awareness is present. Unresponsive wakefulness syndrome is the more neutral name that Laureys and colleagues proposed for the same condition, because many clinicians felt uncomfortable with the older term. A student also needs the term to separate this state from a minimally conscious state, in which some inconsistent responses are present.